Fast and loose with fossils

'Twas a big splash, the past couple of days: "Ida," a well-preserved prehistoric lemur-like critter, showed promise of being one of the many (still) missing links in the supposed evolutionary chain from particles to people.

Then again, maybe not so much:

"This is the first link to all humans," said Hurum at the press conference.

Many paleontologists are unconvinced. They point out that Hurum and Gingerich's analysis compared 30 traits in the new fossil with primitive and higher primates when standard practice is to analyze 200 to 400 traits and to include anthropoids from Egypt and the newer fossils of Eosimias from Asia, both of which were missing from the analysis in the paper. "There is no phylogenetic analysis to support the claims, and the data is cherry-picked," says paleontologist Richard Kay, also of Duke University. Callum Ross, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois agrees: "Their claim that this specimen should be classified as haplorhine is unsupportable in light of modern methods of classification."

As I pointed out over at Vox's, this post-press conference dissection of claims won't receive near the level of public attention the initial announcement did. The short splash of attention simply reinforces to the average (short attention span) person that Darwin's case is cinched. This is one reason the theory of human evolution is as widely accepted as it is -- there are constant announcements of "significant discoveries" that "fill in the gaps," many of which over the decades have later proven incorrect or outright hoaxes. While that track record in itself doesn't falsify this theory of human origins, it does show that its adherents can be as susceptible to prejudice in interpreting data as those who try to "prove" the existence of God via "scientific means." There are a priori worldviews and issues of faith involved with both camps.

I am certainly willing to concede observed changes within species over time. But if one is to place faith in the Bible's message of fall and redemption, as I do, one runs into a problem trying to fit evolution even into some divine plan for human origin:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned... (Romans 5:12)

Getting to Adam through generations of apes presupposes a lot of death before the Fall. But the Bible is clear: sin is what opened the door to death, which was never intended to be part of creation. At this point, one must choose the authority upon which they will base their view: the shifting interpretations of science, or the Bible, which doesn't tell us everything we'd like to know, but rather everything God believes we need to know in order to trust Him.

I'll choose the Prince of Peace over the paleontologists any day.